Vol. 15 · pages 956–960

937PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES Criminal Procedure Code which defines what offences are compoundable and what offences are non-compoundable. My hon. friend will remember that there are altogether 511 sections in the Indian panel code, of them, 108 are taken up with purely declaratory matters, punishments, where the law would apply, general exceptions to the law, costs and so on and so forth. So, we shall cancel or deduct 106 out of 511. The sections which actually define offences are grossly about 400. Four hundred offences, acts and omissions are made offences by the Indian Penal Code. Out of this 400, how many are compoundable ? That is a matter which we must consider because under that lies the principle which is of importance. As I said, the only provision which defines what offences are compoundable or not is section 345 of the Criminal Procedure Code. I have made a little calculation—I am rather weak in mathematics but I believe I cannot be very far wrong in saying—that only 44 offences are compoundable out of the 400. The rest are non-compoundable. From this position, I deduce the conclusion that the principle of the criminal law is that an offence shall ordinarily not be compoundable and that these 44 are merely exceptions to the general rule. Out of the 44, 24 are compoundable without the permission of the magistrate and 20 are compoundable with the permission of the magistrate. So, really speaking, only 24 are compoundable offences. Now, are these offences indicated in this Bill compundable or not ? The Bill itself does not say so. I think there ought to be an express provision to this effect that any offence under this Bill, shall be non-compoundable. If my hon. friend does not propose to accept this suggestion, what would be the result ? The result would be this, that most of these offences will be offences in which hurt or grievous hurt would be caused. They could not be mere offences of show of force or anything less than that; they would be offences involving hurt, grievous hurt, violence and things of that sort. Now, if a magistrate were to apply sub-sections ( 1) or (2) of section 345—I do not want to weary my hon. friend by reading the two sub-sections of section 345 which define offences of this sort—he will find that the offences involve hurt. He will also see that a large majority of them which are made compoundable

938 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES either with the permission of the magistrate or without the permission of the magistrate are offences which involve hurt, grievous hurt, confinement of a person or kidnapping his relation or something like that. All of them are compoundable, absolutly, every one of them. Therefore, it follows that unless you make a. specific and express provision in this Bill, all the offences, if they involve social boycott—this is not mentioned in the Penal Code at all and it is not an offence except conspiracy—and such other acts which involve hurt or violence, so far as section 345 is concerned, will become compoundable and the Bill will be reduced to a complete nullity. It would be a farce. Therefore, my hon. Friend will look into this matter and see—he would be entitled, of course, to take the advice of the Law Ministry—whether within the terms of section 345 of the Criminal Procedure Code these offences would be compoundable, and if so, whether it is not necessary to make an express provision in this Bill to say that offences involving untouchability shall not be regarded as compoundable. Now, Sir, I come to the question of certain defective provisions. I have said about omissions and I want to say something about the defective provisions. The first such provision to which I shall refer is the clause relating to punishment, which is clause 8. The punishment prescribed in the Bill is six months’ imprisonment or fine which may extend to Rs. 500 or both. My hon. Friend was very eloquent on the question of punishment. He said that the punishment ought to be very very light and I was wondering whether he was pleading for a lighter punishment because he himself wanted to commit these offences. He said, “Let the punishment be very light so that no grievance shall be left in the heart of the offender”. I suppose his primary premise is that the offenders who offend the untouchables are really very kindly people, overwhelming with love and kindness and that this is merely an errant act which really ought to be forgiven. It is a matter of great solace to me that he has not prescribed the punishment of being warned and then discharged. That I think would be the best section 561 of the Criminal Procedure Code. Yes, that would be the best; if our object is

939PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES to make the offender a loving person; well, let him be warned and discharged. He will continue to love and no soreness will remain in his heart. Why should he have that ? Unfortunately, my hon. friend has thought that that could not be and therefore, he has suggested this punishment. Now, Sir, having had a little practice in criminal law, I think the rules on which punishment is based are two mainly. One is to deter the offender from repeating his offence. That, I think, is the primary rule of criminal jurisprudence. Punishment is necessary; otherwise the offender may go on repeating his offence. It is to prevent him that there must be a punishment. The second object of punishment is to prevent a man from adopting a criminal career. If a man once begins a criminal career then he may continue to do so unless there is some deterrent punishment to prevent him from adopting that career. Now, Sir, if you accept these two principles, is the punishment proposed by my hon. friend adequate for the purpose of the Bill ? In the first place the six months’ imprisonment is really the maximum and a magistrate may only inflict one day’s imprisonment and let the man be off. There is no minimum fixed that the imprisonment shall not be less than six months or three months or whatever it is. The whole matter is left in the hands of the magistrate. What sort of a magistrate he may be, it may be quite possible and I can quite imagine that he may be a Pandit from Kashi sitting in judgement in the magistrate’s chair. What conscience would he have in the matter of administering this law? Shri Basappa Shetty (Mysore) : Kashi or Kashmir ? Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Oh, Kashmir Brahmins are not true Brahmins, I understand. They are meat khao, machli khao, as they say. Therefore they are not Brahmins. Now, as I said, in this case if you want to see that the law is observed, there ought to have been a minimum punishment below which the magistrate could not go. Secondly the punishment is alternative, imprisonment or fine. The magistrate may very well inflict the alternative punishment

940 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES of fine and there might be an offender who might be prepared even to pay the five hundred rupees in order to escape the clutches of the law. What good can such punishment do ? The Indian Penal Code prescribes a variety of punishments, a variety of them in section 53 : death, transportation, imprisonment, forfeiture of property, fine, whipping, detention in reformatory. There are seven offences for which the Penal Code fixes death penalty; for 50 offences the punishment is transportation; for 21 offences—simple imprisonment; for 12 offences—fine. In all other cases the imprisonment is rigorous. Why my friend has thought so little of this Bill as not to prescribe adequate punishment, it is very difficult for me to understand, I mean, the least that one can expect from him is to prescribe a minimum, may be three months, it does not matter, a minimum of three months’ imprisonment and fine if he wants to fix fine—I am not for inflicting a fine because that only benefits the treasury, but if you say that the fine will go to the victim, I am for fine also. Otherwise I do not want fine. Shri B. B. Sharma (Uttar Pradesh) : Why not the maximum penalty of death ? Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Well, if you like it, have it—I am not so cruel as that and I do not think you are sincere in suggesting it, and, as I said, there are not cases in the Indian Penal Code where minimum punishment has not been prescribed or rigorous imprisonment has not been prescribed. There are three sections here which prescribe rigorous imprisonment, sections 194,226 and 449. Then the Penal Code has prescribed the minimum period of imprisonment in sections 397 and 398. I do not see why, when there is the precedent, the precedent should not be ………… Dr. K. N. Katju : What is 397 ? Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Dacoity. That is worse than dacoity. I think, to starve a man and not to allow him to take water, I think, it is almost causing death. That is, I think, one drawback in the Bill. Then, Sir, the second drawback in the Bill is that there is no provision for taking security for good behaviour. The Criminal Procedure Code has got four sections,

941PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES sections 107, 108, 109 and 110, and they all enable the magistrate to demand security for good behaviour. I don’t understand why this Bill should not contain a provision to that effect. When for instance we find in Rajputana and other States the caste Hindus are agitating to harass the untouchables because they exercise civil and constitutional rights, why should you not take security for good behaviopur ? Shri J. S. Bisht (Uttar Pradesh) : These are all the provisions in the Criminal Procedure Code. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : That is what exactly I am saying, that there is a precedent in the Criminal Procedure Code for taking security from persons who do not keep peace, for good behaviour, from persons disseminating seditious matter, from vagrants and from habitual offenders, for good behaviour. I am not certain that these provisions could be invoked for the purpose of taking security from persons offending against this law. It may be that specific provision dealing with the cases dealt with in this Bill has to be made, and that can only be made by a specific provision in this Bill. Then, Sir, there is another provision which finds a place in the Indian Police Act. Section 15 of the Act, under which when some people in the village or the villagers as a whole disturb the peace, the Government can quarter upon them additional police and recover the cost of the additional police from the inhabitants of that village. That is a general provision. I am not sure again whether that provision could be invoked by the Government for the purpose of enforcing this Act. That Act is a general Act, disturbance of peace and so on and so forth. This is quite a different case and I should have thought that a specific clause on the lines of section 15 of the Police Act should have found a place in this Bill if outlawing of untouchability is intended to be an effective thing. But that again is not there. Now, Sir, I come to another question about which I certainly feel a certain amount of doubt. Who is to administer this law, the Centre or the States ? And if the Centre is to administer the law, is it not better that this Bill should contain a clause to that effect, that it shall be administered by the Central